Monday, May 7, 2007

WHY I BLOG

The original subject of this post was to relate the various details of the 24 I spent with PD (which had I posted the intimate details of said 24 hours is likely to make the head of your average right wing Christian explode).

Rather than transcribe the illicit details of my sex life, I decided to sit down and complete a post that's been in the making for some time.

This blog was begun for two reasons. One, I used to write all the time. In school my standard attire included a white t-shirt, a shaved head, a pair of blue Dickies work pants and a Mead Composition notebook. Endless neatly lined pages of notebook paper were filled with random thoughts, trite/teenage angsty bad poetry and various ideas that were eventually made into longer formats of prose. I loved to write.

The easiest aspect of my college career was writing term papers, which were usually completed with the aid of alcohol and pot. In spite of my lack of grammatical correctness, I excelled in screenwriting, creative writing and English Composition courses.

I mention this is not to boast about any supposed talent I possessed at the time. Rather, I reference this to explain reason #1 why I blog. After graduating from college I was, simply put, burned out. Rather than rocking with my metaphorical cock out, my senior year of college consisted of the following:

-Spring Semester: 5 classes/15 credits
-Summer Semester: 3 classes/12 credits
-Internship: 1 independent film/4 credits
-Fall Semester: 4 classes/13 credits

When I wasn't studying, writing, shooting and/or editing film I was working between 20-25 hours at a part time job framing art a week. Needless to say this took a toll on my mental and physical health. It goes without saying I was frequently stressed and by the time I received my diploma, and I ballooned to 183 pounds.

To cap off my year of craziness I ran a victory lap around Vegas days after my last final. Then I came home and found out I was laid off from my part time job, (being unemployed during a Chicago winter fucking sucks). Four months later I got a boring corporate job that I absolutely hated, but since it provided me with a decent income I stuck with it for 18 months.

Having floated my resume on the job market, I bolted at the first job offer and ran head long into the arms of a nice, small private owned marketing company. It's been 15 months since and in that span of time I accepted myself for who I truly am, came out to all my friends and recently, most of my family. It's been a whirlwind of sorts.

Which leads me to reason #2 why I blog. Although my friends and family have been very supportive about me coming out, I don't have any gay friends (outside of my one friend and her girlfriend from high school). I hate to draw a line between my straight friends and myself, but not having even one gay, male friend has been hard. There's a limit to the understanding and empathy that can be provided by my existing group of friends, which in NO WAY reduces the value of their friendship that I very much value.

Having blogged for a few months now I have met some great new online friends. Having a virtual network of friends similar to myself, yet different enough has been most helpful and certainly aided in completing my coming out process.

As for my very, very good friends (you know who you are) that I gave the link to, you all have been very, very supportive and helpful as well. I love you very much and provideed you with this insight into my life with the hope that it would result in an expansion of our existing relationship(s).

At the same time my hope is that this effort will result in a postive conclusion. I like how casual my relationship with PD is right now, but I hope for something more. In the meantime, I'll keep blogging away and hopefully not making too much of a fool of myself....

5 comments:

jay said...

Hey:

I can totally understand what you mean. When I first came out, There was no one like me that I could talk to.

All of my friends were straight and were very cool with it but at the same time, I'm sure some of them didn't want to hear details about some stuff that I could easily share with a gay guy.

Now a few years later, I have both straight and gay friends and I like the mixture. I encourage you to make some gay friends in Chicago in addition to online.

Interestingly enough, I just realized that most of my gay friends aren't even in Pittsburgh and I really need to do something about that and get out there myself!

My straight friends are for the most part cool and go to gay bars with me although a few of them still are huge prudes and have very wrong assumptions about being gay but I'm working on it.

I have indeed met many cool friends online from blogging and it's something that I value immensely.

Anonymous said...

I don't have many gay friends where I live, but I definitely am working on that. Its more than I had a year ago, thats for sure.

However, the friends I rely on the most are the ones I have met online. Of course, you are one of them and the only one at the moment that I can trust you will be there for me.

So I thank you and hope for many moments to come. In the mean time, go get yourself a few more gay friends because its something many of us bloggers need.

MEETING NEIL IS EASY said...

Wait a minute here! I thought this blog was about knitting needles!

Shit!

Hamilton said...

Yeap pretty much the same story. We talked about how the line between male friends and gay friends etc. It is very true for me at least. I think blogging is another way to have this connection with the gay community in a way. You know, a means that doesn't involve loud music and alchohol

The [Cherry] Ride said...

Two of my best friends here in Chicago, who are gay, I met through blogging. It is a good vehicle to meet quality people.